"There's a foreign object lodged in the patient's lower region. Due to the unique circumstances, we need the patient's next of kin to sign the consent form for an extraction procedure."

My body stiffens when I see the name on the consent form.

"I'm Renee Becker's next of kin."

It's Liam Cassidy who says that. He's the first love of my wife, Renee Becker, who has been away for a month, claiming she's off on a business trip.

Liam doesn't recognize me. He takes the pen and signs the consent form. In the section to mark his relationship to the patient, he writes the word "husband".

After passing the pen back to me, he grips my hand tightly and beseeches me, "Doctor, you must do everything you can to help her. She's carrying my baby."

As I wrench my hand back from him, my wedding ring slips off and falls onto the floor.

Back inside the operating room, I finally got a clear look at the patient lying on the table.

It was Renee Becker, my wife, the one who had disappeared for a month under the pretense of a business trip.

I never realized she was that wild in bed. She even allowed Liam Cassidy to stick a tennis ball into her lower region, which resulted in the need for emergency surgery.

Well, it seemed as though those scandalous stories I'd read about online weren't made up after all.

Renee's face was pale from the pain, and she kept muttering Liam's name. "I'm too scared to be alone, Liam. Stay with me."

She also said to me, "Doctor, I want him in the operating room with me. I know that the hospital will allow it under special circumstances."

I flung off her hand. It was digging so hard into mine that her nails nearly clawed off my skin.

"You're not in labor. Companions aren't allowed for regular surgery."

Renee suddenly pushed away the doctor who was trying to administer anesthesia to her and started throwing a tantrum. "Then I'm not getting the surgery. And if anything happens to me, it'll be on you guys!"

All my colleagues in the operating room exchanged looks. In the end, Dr. Reynolds, the chief of surgery, let out a helpless sigh.

"Let him in. Make sure he completes the surgical prep to be properly disinfected first."

Soon, Liam came rushing into the operating room. He grabbed Renee's hand and got on his knees beside the bed. "This is all my fault, Renee. I was too reckless. I'm so sorry…"

Renee smiled weakly and shook her head. "It's not your fault. I did it willingly. You were too bewitching. I couldn't control myself either."

My hand, which was clutching a scalpel, trembled when I heard that.

The next second, Liam shouted angrily, "Is this the standard of the medical team at this hospital? You're letting a doctor with hand tremors operate on my wife? I'm warning you. If anything happens to her, all of you are going down with her!"

He kept calling Renee his wife.

They could've gone to Salvation Hospital, which had an even better reputation than this private hospital, but they didn't. Obviously, it was only because they were afraid that their affair would be exposed had they gone there instead.

Alas, fate played a cruel trick on them.

Just today, I accepted an invitation from this private hospital to conduct a practical demonstration.

Renee thought that no one here knew me, which was why she let Liam bring her here. Little did they know that not only would they end up running into me here, but I would also turn out to be the lead surgeon for this operation.

My sneer seemed to have pissed Liam off, but due to the urgency of the situation, he dared not pick a fight over it. He simply continued to glare daggers at me.

…

After the operation, Renee regained consciousness. As I walked past her hospital room, I heard her on the phone with her assistant, Delia Hudson.

"I'm still tied up here. If Evan asks, tell him that an issue has come up with the project, so I need to deal with it and won't be able to head back home yet. It's his birthday today. Remember to get a bouquet of flowers and a watch delivered to him."

Moments after Renee ended her call, I got a call from Delia.

"Ms. Becker loves you so much, Mr. Lane! Even though she's so busy, she didn't forget about getting you a birthday gift," Delia said.

"I got it."

My indifferent response stunned Delia. In the past, I would've definitely asked more questions to find out what was going on with Renee.

After the call, I was heading back to the office when Liam came out of the hospital room and grabbed me.

"It's all your fault, you quack! If you're such a terrible doctor, you shouldn't even be performing surgeries! Renee just coughed up blood! What are you going to do about it, huh?"

Despite this being a medical crisis, Liam didn't seem the least bit anxious about saving Renee. Instead, he was focused on questioning my medical skills.

However, I had no time for him. I called out to the nearest nurse, "Arrange for a blood test at once!"

Renee had always seen the doctors at Salvation Hospital, so her medical files weren't on hand at this hospital.

As I tried to rush into the hospital room to check on her, Liam, who seemed to have no sense of priority, continued to grab onto me.

"Where do you think you're going? If not for you, why would my wife be coughing up blood, huh? Are you the only doctor available in this huge hospital? Get me someone else!"

"What are you doing?" a nurse exclaimed. "Our hospital had to go to great lengths to invite Dr. Lane here. Many patients can't even get to arrange an appointment with him!"

"That's right. If you think we don't have enough doctors here, then take the patient to Salvation Hospital instead. That's the best hospital in the city."

Flustered, Liam deflated and started rubbing his nose, but he insisted, "No. Since it's your hospital that caused this mess, you guys should be the ones bearing the responsibility for it!"

"Then don't get in the way when we're trying to help the patient!"

Amid the scuffle, the blood test results came back.

The moment I saw the report, I felt utterly disgusted.

"You knew she was pregnant, yet you still let her consume those kinds of enhancers? Are you trying to kill both the mother and the child?" I snarled.

I turned toward the nurses. "Prepare for surgery immediately. Get all the doctors on duty to assist me in the operating room."

Liam's expression turned dark, but he soon began shouting at me again.

"The staff at the drugstore said it'd be fine! I bet you're just spouting that bullshit to scare me, you quack!"

I was about to retort when Renee suddenly grabbed me and glared at me. "I chose to take those pills. Do you have a problem with that? I'll have you know that I love that man with my whole heart. I'd even die for him if I had to."

Once she finished speaking, she spat out even more blood, and her body started convulsing.

I swiftly had the nurses wheel her into the operating room.

Renee stared longingly at Liam, like lovers who were about to part for life. She even asked tearfully, "Liam, tell me. Did you ever regret abandoning me back then to go abroad? If you'd been around, I wouldn't have had to marry someone I don't love."

Liam's eyes reddened. Feeling remorseful, he slapped himself a few times. "I do. I regret it so much. I wish I could kill myself. Why did I ever let you marry a man you don't love? Don't be scared. From now on, I'll always be with you."

After hearing Liam's answer, Renee closed her eyes, as if her final wish had been fulfilled.

Her condition was far more serious than I'd imagined. The drugs in her bloodstream, combined with the child in her womb, kept increasing the challenges in performing this surgery.

We even got to the point where he had to choose whether to sacrifice the baby to save the mother's life.

Having seen Liam's earlier outburst, my colleagues were all conflicted. They were afraid that he would continue to cause more trouble for the hospital.

However, Renee was in critical condition. There was no time to dawdle. If we didn't remove the baby to save her, there was a high chance that both she and the baby would die on the operating table.

"Get the next of kin to sign the consent form immediately. We're going to remove the fetus, stop the bleeding, and put the sutures in.

The fetus wasn't even fully formed yet. It only weighed about a pound, but it felt like a thousand pounds in my hands.

This was my child with Renee. We'd been married for five years before she finally agreed to have a baby with me.

While it was true that I no longer planned on staying married to her after learning of her affair with Liam, it still broke my heart that we lost the child like that.

The surgery lasted three more hours. My back was so sore that I could barely stay on my feet.

After observing Renee for half an hour and confirming that her condition no longer worsened, we finally wheeled her out of the operating room.

At last, I made it back to the office, thinking I could finally get some rest.

However, when Renee woke up and found out that the baby was gone, she got Liam to help her out of bed and come over to confront me about it.

The moment I opened the door, Liam punched me in the face. "You bastard! I said you were a quack! What kind of surgeon kills the patient's child during surgery?"

I was knocked to the floor, taking a chair down with me.

Liam grew more and more agitated. "It was just a simple little procedure to remove a tennis ball, but you made my wife cough up blood and blamed it on the pills she took.

"When I bought those enhancers, I checked with the staff multiple times, and they said it was perfectly fine for pregnant women to take them. You're just coming up with excuses to cover your own ass!

"I'm warning you. This isn't over! I didn't sign the consent form just now. What you did is murder, and I can sue you for it!"

Other medical staff noticed the commotion and rushed over, but Liam shoved them aside without a care. He slammed me hard against the wall and pinned me to it.

Renee screamed right along with him, her eyes bloodshot as she glared at me. "Do you know how much pain I went through just to have this baby? I even miscarried my first baby just so I could do the IVF procedure to get pregnant with Liam's baby.

"For the past month, I had to be injected with the biggest needles I'd ever seen in my life. I had to let them stab me over and over again with those needles before it finally worked!"

The moment I heard this, my entire body went rigid. So Renee hadn't been away for a month on a business trip. She'd gone off to get the IVF procedure done.

She'd even miscarried our child long before that.

My mind went completely blank.

Meanwhile, Liam pressed me back down on the floor and started punching me again. But I felt no pain at all. Renee's words were still ringing in my ears.

"Why are you always wearing a mask, huh? Are you scared that people might see what you really look like? That'll stop you from ruining even more people's lives in the future, huh? Well, today, I'm going to let everyone see your face, you quack!"

Liam pulled out his phone and aimed the camera at me. He was sitting on top of me. I could barely breathe.

However, he scoffed. "What? Are you going to beg for mercy? Don't even think about it! It's a fact that you've killed my child. I'm going to do the public a service by exposing you!"

He ripped off my face mask and pointed the camera at me.

However, the moment my face was revealed, Renee cried out in alarm, "Evan? What are you doing here?"